Phillip L. Scheldt – Rants and Raves and……..

Month: August 2014

EVERYDAY you must call, or write someone, anyone, anywhere, and SIMPLY tell them.

THANK YOU or THANKS FOR YOUR TIME.

At least 2 people in this world love you so much they would die for you.
A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you.
Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.
You mean the world to someone.
If not for you, someone may not be living.
Even from the biggest mistake, something good can still come from it.
When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look: you most likely turned your back on the world
Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you.
Remember the compliments received. Forget the rude remarks.
Always tell someone how you feel about them; you will feel much better and you’ll both be happy.
If you have a great friend, take the time to let them know that they are great.
It would personally please me, and I cannot tell you how many rewards you will receive if you do this one thing.

EVERYDAY you must call, or write someone, anyone, anywhere, and SIMPLY tell them.

Or is that a baby boomer paradigm? A concept so alien to their children that it will disappear into the ether, like 8-tracks and cassettes, a construct that will flummox future generations.

George Carlin gained fame by pointing out our foibles, like our propensity to accumulate stuff. I’m a hoarder, I can barely throw anything out, but is that concept passe?

Just ask a millennial. Why have a car? Never mind an expensive one. You can just use Uber or public transportation. As to going fast in a sleek machine, where can you achieve those speeds, and to a generation brought up on safety, wearing helmets while riding tricycles, the death-defying thrill of going a hundred miles an hour in an Italian sports car… That’s just not appealing. Kind of like extreme sports themselves, they’re dying. The X Games pushed the envelope in the 1990s, today snowboarding is failing, that’s old man’s stuff, skiing is where it’s at.

But not as much as video games. Used to be you had to own the latest console. Now you just whip out your smartphone, or boot up your computer. Furthermore, we don’t even need the latest smartphone or computer. If your phone has LTE, it’s good enough. And no one’s overpaying for the latest speedy computer chip, tricked-out gaming PCs like Alienware were once the rage, now you never hear about them.

CDs. Like vinyl before them, they demonstrated your identity. The wall in your abode could be perused to delineate your tastes. But now it’s all about playlists, who’d want to own all that dreck when you can access whatever you want online?

Kind of like books and magazines. They’re stories and articles. You can get those on electronic devices.

And why buy a bigger house when you’ve just got to heat it, never mind cool it. It’s the antithesis of green. And millennials are almost all environmentalists.

Could it be that the culture of consumerism, which has driven the engine of America, is history? Or to the degree it survives, is it purely virtual? Manufacturing went overseas, we live in a service economy. Once you have the tools to access your data, do you really need anything else?

Check the age of the people running Apple, or Amazon. And even the meisters at Google are now middle-aged. And kids aren’t always on to the new trend, especially if it’s about more than mugging. Oldsters embraced Twitter first.

PEOPLE WHO ONLY READ ONE NEWS SOURCE

It builds bias. Because most outlets have a viewpoint. Yours can only be informed if you get information from multiple sources.

GOVERNMENT’S REFUSAL TO INVEST IN AMERICA

Infrastructure is flagging, we could have put America to work repairing roads and bridges and sewers when interest rates were negligible and no one had a job. Instead, we’re gonna wait until the economy revives and we have to pay more for money and workers. This is a country? Why is it no one wants to believe we’re gonna get to the future?

MISPERCEPTION

Despite data being rampant, publicity rules. With so much information at our fingertips he who yells loudest usually convinces America he matters, even though in truth he might not, no one may be buying his product.

SKINNINESS

Sure, we have an obesity problem in America, but how about those oldsters shrinking by the minute? Especially women, who seem to believe if they don’t eat they’re better than the rest of us, even though they lack brainpower and the ability to move. Despite living in a foodie culture, the older and richer you are, the more food is taboo.

Everybody’s for change, just as long as it doesn’t negatively impact them. They can’t lose their job, they can’t make less money, you’ve got to leave that to the march of capitalism, and then these same citizens cry to the government to protect them. Ugh.

Unless we’re all willing to work together on solutions that benefit us all, we’re screwed. How come in families we know compromise is king, but when it comes to politics, it’s taboo.

MONEY IS KING

If someone is rich, they’re admirable. Making money is the highest form of personal achievement, unless you’re poor, then you hate those with the cash.

Which way do you want to have it? Whatever you’ve got, that rules?

But the truth is money has ruined art. It doesn’t matter how good or bad something is, it’s all about how much money it makes. No, let me restate that, if it makes a ton of money, it’s good!

MISINFORMATION

We’re living in the information age people! Don’t trust the hearsay of your friends when all you have to do is Google to get the information.

And this is where it becomes complicated, the rich and powerful are all about information and truth. Sure, they try to bend it, but they know it and understand it. Which is why anybody with a brain wants to hang with the rich and powerful, they’re the only ones who know what’s going on!

CONFORMITY

Being a member of the group is paramount to the millennial. You don’t want to stick out, if you’re a social pariah you can’t participate on social media! In the sixties, it was all about letting your freak flag fly. Now it’s about being just like everybody else.

Even in art. The millennials don’t want to do hard time honing their craft and converting skeptics one by one, they just want to imitate those who are successful, which is why so much art is me-too!

Yup, watch my YouTube cover, because I haven’t got a single original thing to say in my music.

Do you think kids want to own a big box with terrible mileage just like their parents drive?

Just because cars have lasted a century, that does not mean they’re here to stay, that does not mean they’re not ripe for disruption. Cars are the newspapers of today. Something oldsters can’t live without and youngsters can.

The basic premise is you’ve got to go. How you get there is irrelevant. Furthermore, the costs of car ownership…the insurance and the gas, never mind the maintenance, none of them appeal to a youngster who believes all costs should be baked in.

Hidden fees are anathema to the younger generation. They’ll pay, but you’ve got to be honest.

In other words, we live in a world built by baby boomers that does not square at all with the needs of their progeny.

You don’t hear kids clutching to their CDs, never mind MP3s. They don’t complain about sound quality. They don’t bitch about the way it used to be. – Unless you’re willing to question all your preconceptions, you’re going to be left behind.

It’s the sixties once again, with a giant generation gap that the self-satisfied oldsters just can’t understand.

But they’re envious of. Come on, a world where everybody’s interconnected, where few are lonely because even geeks and nerds can connect, and everything’s at your fingertips?

Fifty years from now smartphones will look quaint. Bandwidth speeds will be laughed at like floppy disks. The revolution we embrace will be in the rearview mirror.

Just like that machine you’re overpaying every month for to impress people who no longer care.

You don’t have to leave your house to connect with your friends, you don’t have go to the mall, as for doing illicit things…sexting is more outre and volatile than anything baby boomers could ever cook up.

To the younger generation cars are transportation, nothing more. They take you from a to b. But appealing to the older generation, manufacturers don’t develop products that fit this appeal, they keep touting all the stuff that worked in decades past. Appearance, specs. They don’t even understand their own product!

Ever notice that every smartphone looks the same? Yup, a rectangular brick. And it’s about customization via software? Credit the car companies with putting apps in the dash, but if they want to win they’re going to have to move as fast as the tech companies, one of which is eating their lunch.

Imagine if Tesla had a 20k car. Yup, a utility you just plugged in, that didn’t harm the environment, something simple, futuristic… Then GM and Toyota would to be very afraid. Because kids embrace the new and care about the environment. All that brand equity in GM? A youngster cares not a whit about that.

Nor does he or she care about a Ferrari. If you buy one of these sleek automobiles, I hope you enjoy driving it, because your image is gonna take a hit. All the young girls you want to impress will be laughing at you, you wasted all your money on WHAT?

You mean I need a bigger engine and a swoopy style to get laid? I just go on Tinder!

Welcome to the baby boomer nightmare, wherein everything they’ve held near and dear becomes irrelevant. Like automobiles.

Cars are a utility.

It’s not the seventies anymore, no one ever bows out of an affair citing car trouble. I’ve got a AAA membership, but I only use it to get tires changed in seedy areas, the concept of a tow because my carburetor is clogged is about as foreign as the blue screen of death. (And new cars come with run-flat tires!)

Yes, remember how you used to need to know how computers worked to use one? Same deal with cars. Everybody had a modicum of expertise, having experienced flaws and shoddy maintenance. But today you just turn ’em on and they go, you don’t have to even take your key out of your pocket. Sure, you might smash your automobile up, but Google’s developing an app for that, otherwise known as the driverless car.

Joy in driving? Taking a few weeks or months to drive cross- country? Why would anybody want to do THAT! Why do we have Boomer Cars?

Yup, the road trip is as dead as the western. You could recast “Bonanza” and no one under forty would watch.

He was one of us. A baby boomer who seemed not to fly above the fray, but to be part of it. A man so gifted we wondered where he got it from, with a demeanor that had you feeling if you ran into him you’d easily enter conversation, you’d soon be old friends.

I don’t know what happened here. I don’t know Robin Williams. All I do know is when one of us takes himself out of the lineup, removes himself from the game, we’re all left with more questions than answers.

Being human is rough. But when it’s over all there is is silence. And as bad as it gets, it always gets better, if you can ride out the bad patches.

As a matter of fact, my mother, if she were alive, would still not know how the world works. Like most people, she wants to believe you work hard, marry right, put your nose to the grindstone and it all works out.

But it doesn’t really happen that way at all.

My father knew. And always got in trouble for it. No one wanted to hear what he had to say, except the people who made a lot of money on his words, lawyers and property owners.

But regular people did not. Because my father always wanted to lift the end of the carpet, to uncover the truth.

As he told me more than once, “there are no miracles.” The person driving a hundred thousand dollar car with no visible means of support… He’s inherited millions, or is on the way to bankruptcy. Because if it looks inexplicable, it is.

So they tell us to work hard, get into a good college and it will all work out.

Only it doesn’t.

Let’s forget the losers. Those who drop out, who watch reality television and dream of winning a hundred grand. Because a hundred grand doesn’t go far, and it certainly doesn’t last. Winners don’t only score once, but again and again. Which is why the smart people become record executives, not recording stars.

So you graduate from college and take a job at the factory. Call it the law firm, the bank, the brokerage house. You think you’re winning, but you’re afraid of risk, like Jennifer Lawrence’s character in this movie you don’t like change.

I understand the use of drugs musicians use on the road, but it’s hard for me to glorify them. As much as I believe marijuana should be legalized, along with the harder stuff, it bugs me that we lionize inebriation, as if the highest state of being is to be high. Because personally, my greatest experiences have all been natural.

I don’t want to lock you up. As I get older, I veer towards the libertarian philosophy of we’re all individuals and get to make our own choices, but when someone dies of drugs, I think of the waste involved, it taints the legacy. Yup, even Jerry Garcia. Wouldn’t it be great if we still had Captain Trips around, if you didn’t use him as your personal Jesus, forcing him into a drug habit retreat.

It’s hard to be famous. Not that only famous people do drugs, never mind O.D. But most musicians are not well-adjusted, they play for the love of the audience, they get high being on stage, and then being off is positively awful. First, the comedown from the gig, then the endless travel/boredom.

The truth is every career is unique, would the Beatles have licensed to corporations if they broke today? I’m sure Pearl Jam would. You’re a product of your place and time.

It was so different from today. No one thought they were entitled to instant stardom, never mind a gig, whereas today pre-teens are stunned that no one wants to see them live.

But today no one’s lonely, you can always find your tribe online.

But back then the loneliness was overwhelming, especially if you didn’t live in the city. You were an outcast if you didn’t play sports. Girls didn’t pay attention to you if you weren’t cute. You got bit by the music bug and woodshedded until you could break out. And Johnny did. Although his career was thwarted by high expectations that were initially unfulfilled.